The 9/11 Key to Political Transformation

— A belated strategic initiative to turn the world around
by W. David Kubiak

Given the momentum and added troop strength of the corporate forces now in power, citizens will face unending appeals this year to help combat firestorms on many different fronts.

Already we are struggling to prioritize our efforts to stop war atrocities, torturers’ appointments, escalating Pentagon appropriations, horrific new weapons, the resurrection of Star Wars, and the imminent draft, not to mention environmental assaults, our ballooning debt, attacks on our rights, the slashing of the social safety net, and a dozen other centrifugal symptoms of the sickness at the top.

Alternatively we could step back a pace or two and see where all this carnage connects and focus on a strategy that might stop it all at once.

We need what social analyst George Lakoff calls a “strategic initiative” – a plan in which a change in one critical area has automatic reverberating effects in many, many, many other realms.

THE SOURCE OF DARK FORCELooking at the onslaughts we face, it’s obvious that this administration’s primary source of war-making, rights-taking, vote-raking power is still and always has been the “official 9/11 story.” The exquisitely timed “surprise attack” it portrays instantly justified what we now know was a long planned agenda to take us into endless war, crippling debt and constitutional twilight.

There is now an enormous amount of scholarly evidence and expert testimony that a) clearly demonstrates the official 9/11 story is a sham, and b) supports the millions of New Yorkers who, according to a recent Zogby poll, believe that top US officials “consciously” allowed the attacks to happen and that we desperately need a new investigation now.

This is no longer a fringe position. Identical calls have been made by fifty victim families and over one hundred prominent Americans including three 2004 presidential candidates [Nader (Ind), Cobb (Green), Badnarik (Libertarian)], respected rabbis and imams, historians and legislators, military officials and diplomats, as well as celebrated leaders from the environmental, alternative economics and “peace & justice” communities. Examining these eminent names on the 9/11 Truth Statement at 911truth.org will quickly show that with regard to 9/11 at least, today’s so-called “conspiracy theorists” are not who they used to be.

As this extraordinary breadth of skepticism clearly signifies, the demand for 9/11 truth is not about to go away. It is not simply a matter of belated justice for the tragedy’s immediate victims. The attacks have since been relentlessly exploited to keep generating new victims for many years on many fronts both here at home and in places far away.

UNPLUGGING THE NEOCON POWER SUPPLY

The fabricated “official 9/11 story” has in fact empowered so many subsequent offenses that 9/11 truth has become the mother of all issues and remains the key to widespread redress. If anyone is really looking for a “strategic initiative” to unplug the entire neocon power supply, consider the impact that full disclosure of 9/11 deceit would have upon the following range of concerns.

Uncovering the truth of 9/11 is simultaneously:

A peace issue: the public’s ongoing ignorance of official 9/11 lies will continue to feed the fear and hostility the “War on Terror” depends upon. Once the truth is known, “Remember 9/11!” will take on a whole new significance and foster a vital “fool me twice” mistrust of our military-industrial complex and most aggressive leaders.

A national security issue: as long as 9/11 lies are exploited to mount support for brutal resource wars, the more the Muslim world will rightfully despise us and threaten our kids for generations to come. (Some indeed argue that creating this durable new defense budget-sustaining threat was a more important motive for the phony 9/11-to-Iraq war segue than seizing oil or shoring up Sharon.)

A children’s issue: the social programs sacrificed for “War on Terror” boondoggles and profiteering overwhelmingly victimize the young, especially those with disabilities.

An environmental issue: post-9/11 calls for “energy independence” have been seized and twisted by Bush’s corporate sponsors to justify more wilderness oil drilling, abusive environmental practices, and a rebirth of nuclear power, not to mention a lengthening list of corporate takings from the ecological commons.

A public health issue: in New York, official lies about post-attack air quality promise to kill more residents from toxic WTC pollution than those who died from the attacks themselves; nationally, the cost of the 9/11-fueled War on Terror is gutting public health budgets across the land.

A women’s issue: the ongoing costs of 9/11-related warfare, job loss and social program austerity fall far more heavily upon women and children nationwide; and 9/11 fear has politically empowered the far right to launch a war here at home on women’s basic rights.

A human rights issue: the official 9/11 story has spawned such bigoted and vengeful fear that a recent Cornell University poll found that 44% of Americans are now ready to slash US Muslims’ civil rights, while a nearly equal number now accept the “need” to torture prisoners.

A social justice issue: poor and minority Americans are deeply scarred by “War on Terror”-related cutbacks in social programs at the same time that their youth are the most heavily recruited by the military and sacrificed in battle as the conflict proceeds

An electoral issue: although “god, gays & guns” are often characterized as “family values” election ploys, their common denominator is fear. Fear that we are beyond self-help as a people, fear our children will not think or act like us, fear that without our firearms we are helpless in a sick and scary world. The higher the national fear quotient (and custom color-coded threat level), the more these constituencies will flock to bellowing “tough guy” leaders who peddle dread, feign infallibility, and seem happy to wield deadly force to protect them from all harm. (See Erich Fromm’s “Fear of Freedom” for the classic study of how fear fuels authoritarianism and acceptance of fascist societies.)

A Constitutional liberty issue: the official 9/11 story (and deftly timed anthrax attacks) generated instant blind assent to the Constitution-shredding Patriot Act as well as scores of other presidential and Department of Justice directives that further threaten accountability and our shrinking Bill of Rights.

A national solvency issue: the “national 9/11 emergency” has allowed the Bush team to abandon any pretense of fiscal restraint, flood corporate backers with exorbitant profits, plunge the nation into an abyss of debt, and hasten arch-privatizer Grover Norquist’s dream of “a government small enough to drown in a bathtub.”

A media reform issue: the consistent, breathtaking refusal of mainstream media to investigate official deception since 9/11 (up through Iraq and 2004 electoral fraud) has openly exposed the industry as cowardly and/or corrupt. Thus far only the independent and second-tier media have shown any journalistic integrity regarding these questions and will benefit enormously when public outrage over the cover-up finally forces the breakup of conglomerates and across the board reform.

And so on…

REVERSING THE ARTS OF ROVE

In sum, the official 9/11 myth’s emotional and political power will continue to drive the country in a dozen different destructive directions until we confront and deconstruct it with 9/11 truth.

This cynical fable has indeed become the corporatists’ essential power supply upon which all their military crimes, legislative overreach, and electoral success depend. (See how incessantly they invoke it to justify every brutality, theft and assault upon our rights.)

It is, however, also their gravest vulnerability since it is only sustained by a tissue of lies, corrupt media and public ignorance.

One of Karl Rove’s most useful axioms is “attack your opponent’s greatest strengths.” He thus focused on Kerry’s war record and Gore’s intellect, and systematically savaged them with loud and clever lies. We can likewise devastate support for the current administration, but honestly and honorably using 9/11 truth.

We can also use it to forge a wider, more diverse coalition with many others equally afflicted by this government’s abuse of its misbegotten power. In fact, there are few groups fighting for social justice, the environment, or basic human rights in the world today who would not profit immensely from a fearless indictment of our top officials for their 9/11 lies and crimes.

THE OTHER 9/11 FEAR FACTOR

For many of us that truth may prove more disturbing than the countless lies we’ve recognized, but the threat will no longer be invisible, mysterious or misunderstood. It will also be within our power to deal with as a democratic people, using the force of law instead of black ops, torture or high tech brutality. Yes, it will take a lot of anachronistic courage, but recently the Ukrainians, Serbs, Venezuelans and Filipinos have all been kind enough to show us the way. Closer to home but long ago in 1775, Patrick Henry also challenged us with words that ring today.

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth – and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it now.”

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W. David Kubiak is a Project Censored Award-winning journalist, executive director of 911truth.org, and founder of Big Medicine, a Maine-based research & education institute focused on the corporate takeover over our country, culture and consciousness. Email: kubiak(at)nancho.net